Watching any Alfred Hitchcock film can be enjoyable when you know something about the director going in. That he got his start as an expressionist filmmaker, that he was a Catholic, and that he had a deep suspicion of law are all points thrashed out enjoyably in "I Confess". It's when you try to watch it as a movie that it feels unsatisfactory.
Late one night, Father Logan (Montgomery Clift) sees someone enter his church. It's Keller (O.E. Hasse), an attendant at Logan's rectory. Keller tells Logan he has a confession to make: He just murdered a man. Logan is now bound by the seal of the confessional from telling what he knows, a tough thing as suspicions begin to center around Logan himself.
From the opening shot, of a church spire set high atop the city of Quebec, the film makes clear this is going to be a dark and psychological treatment of the sort Hitchcock did in the 1920s with "The Lodger" and "Blackmail". The Catholic angle is presented sincerely, if a bit grimly, making clear the depth of Logan's dilemma. And the authorities are even more overbearing here than usual, pressing not only Logan but his former lover Ruth (Anne Baxter) with cold certainty and some shady tactics.
If only the film worked better as a mystery. The film hinges on a pretty goofy coincidence, that the victim of Keller's murder just happened to be blackmailing Ruth about her relationship with Logan. With the notable exception of Karl Malden as a police investigator, the cast seems to be sleepwalking through the film, Clift so woodenly you might call him the Manchurian Prelate. Hearing Keller's confession, he seems almost catatonic, and you get as tired as Malden's character listening to his polite evasions. "There is nothing I can add to what I've already said," he basically says, and seems a bit miffed that it's not enough.
The confession is the heart of the film, and at the heart of the film's problem. Like JoeytheBrit and other posters here, I'm struck by the turn in Keller's character, from genuinely remorseful to taunting and even conniving to set Logan up. If he's so depraved, why did he confess in the first place? Understanding Logan's position (he can't rat out Keller no matter how he deserves it because he is now the keeper of Keller's soul), it seems he's still too passive, not giving Keller any grief when it becomes clear Keller is not turning himself in.
It's not a bad film, just convoluted and underdeveloped. The exploration of Hitchcock's faith is fascinating stuff, and skillfully presented in an expressionistic way; plenty of shots where crucifixes are seen in shadow, reflection, and profile. The encounters between Keller and Logan in the rectory have a certain power even when (because?) Clift is not projecting very much; as if presenting a kind of Christian existentialist message of a lost shepherd left undeveloped in the script. Cinematographer Robert Burks' work on other Hitchcock films is easier to appreciate, but his contribution relative to everyone else may not have been greater than it was here.
A good film to see with this one is Hitchcock's "The Wrong Man", which showcases Catholic guilt in a different but no less complicated light. Both are darker films, but speak to qualities that undergirded Hitchcock's artistic vision and, in more measured doses, lifted his work above that of anyone else.
Late one night, Father Logan (Montgomery Clift) sees someone enter his church. It's Keller (O.E. Hasse), an attendant at Logan's rectory. Keller tells Logan he has a confession to make: He just murdered a man. Logan is now bound by the seal of the confessional from telling what he knows, a tough thing as suspicions begin to center around Logan himself.
From the opening shot, of a church spire set high atop the city of Quebec, the film makes clear this is going to be a dark and psychological treatment of the sort Hitchcock did in the 1920s with "The Lodger" and "Blackmail". The Catholic angle is presented sincerely, if a bit grimly, making clear the depth of Logan's dilemma. And the authorities are even more overbearing here than usual, pressing not only Logan but his former lover Ruth (Anne Baxter) with cold certainty and some shady tactics.
If only the film worked better as a mystery. The film hinges on a pretty goofy coincidence, that the victim of Keller's murder just happened to be blackmailing Ruth about her relationship with Logan. With the notable exception of Karl Malden as a police investigator, the cast seems to be sleepwalking through the film, Clift so woodenly you might call him the Manchurian Prelate. Hearing Keller's confession, he seems almost catatonic, and you get as tired as Malden's character listening to his polite evasions. "There is nothing I can add to what I've already said," he basically says, and seems a bit miffed that it's not enough.
The confession is the heart of the film, and at the heart of the film's problem. Like JoeytheBrit and other posters here, I'm struck by the turn in Keller's character, from genuinely remorseful to taunting and even conniving to set Logan up. If he's so depraved, why did he confess in the first place? Understanding Logan's position (he can't rat out Keller no matter how he deserves it because he is now the keeper of Keller's soul), it seems he's still too passive, not giving Keller any grief when it becomes clear Keller is not turning himself in.
It's not a bad film, just convoluted and underdeveloped. The exploration of Hitchcock's faith is fascinating stuff, and skillfully presented in an expressionistic way; plenty of shots where crucifixes are seen in shadow, reflection, and profile. The encounters between Keller and Logan in the rectory have a certain power even when (because?) Clift is not projecting very much; as if presenting a kind of Christian existentialist message of a lost shepherd left undeveloped in the script. Cinematographer Robert Burks' work on other Hitchcock films is easier to appreciate, but his contribution relative to everyone else may not have been greater than it was here.
A good film to see with this one is Hitchcock's "The Wrong Man", which showcases Catholic guilt in a different but no less complicated light. Both are darker films, but speak to qualities that undergirded Hitchcock's artistic vision and, in more measured doses, lifted his work above that of anyone else.